I am new to the forum so I don't know if this is where I should post this here. Here is my question:

I am relatively new to guitar again (after a 16 year break) and I mainly play Dead. What scales should I learn to get some of the Jerry jams down?

Also, do you play with mucis behind you to get a rythm? Right now I just experiment with the chords and try to create the songs in my head to translate to the guitar, but I want to so much furthur than that.

You could get through well over 90% of the Dead's stuff with Major, Mixolydian, Dorian, & the Pentatonics (Major & Minor). Garcia also plays alot out of chord shapes in the "country" type songs.

As far as the songs are concerned, I've never had a question about any of them that the Song Forums on this site didn't touch on. If they haven't covered it, you'll get an answer quickly.

To answer your other question, when learning a new tune, I go through it a bunch of times learning some of the signature riffs of the song, then just play along with it on the Archive. I also try and jam with slower versions of tunes that I'm learning(e.g. 72 Deal rather than an 80's version, a 74 Eyes rather than a 76-77).

dleonard wrote:You could get through well over 90% of the Dead's stuff with Major, Mixolydian, Dorian, & the Pentatonics (Major & Minor). Garcia also plays alot out of chord shapes in the "country" type songs.

As far as the songs are concerned, I've never had a question about any of them that the Song Forums on this site didn't touch on. If they haven't covered it, you'll get an answer quickly.

To answer your other question, when learning a new tune, I go through it a bunch of times learning some of the signature riffs of the song, then just play along with it on the Archive. I also try and jam with slower versions of tunes that I'm learning(e.g. 72 Deal rather than an 80's version, a 74 Eyes rather than a 76-77).

Concert DVD's help ALOT too

+1

Play along with what you're listening to, and don't worry if you mess up--Jerry and Bob will cover you!

thunderman wrote:I am new to the forum so I don't know if this is where I should post this here. Here is my question:

I am relatively new to guitar tutorial again (after a 16 year break) and I mainly play Dead. What scales should I learn to get some of the Jerry jams down?

Also, do you play with mucis behind you to get a rythm? Right now I just experiment with the chords and try to create the songs in my head to translate to the guitar, but I want to so much furthur than that.

Any advice from the studs is great!

Thunder

Actually, you are quite doing a right thing. What you are doing is the same process as you are transcribing music. If you want to learn more of Dead's song, familiarize yourself with their songs and get the chords from it.

Last edited by ndrewoods on Sun Nov 20, 2011 7:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Some good advice here. There's a couple of things I would add. Jerry played a lot of enharmonic tones (stuff outside the scale) - when you hear something especially interesting go back and try to figure out the notes and see how they fit into the scale/chord/melody and look for other chord structures where you can use it. Also, almost as important as the notes is his technique - his use of string bends is a lot different than the typical rock guitar player. Keep an ear out for that stuff as well.